APIN,SURELY PSYCHIATRY DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS!

A couple of days ago I made a post telling how I found a significant difference in psychiatry in a teaching hospital like I am presently as against a Psychiatric hospital like where I was before.Well, over the weeks I have found some other very important differences.Such include the rate at which we practise laison psychiatry.We are called upon so regularly to review patients in the medical,obstetric and surgical departments.One common consult we usually have is that to see HIV positive patients who are having psychiatric manifestations.
It is now a well known fact that there are a number of psychiatric conditions that can be found in HIV/AIDS patients.These include things like suicidal ideation and attempts,substance abuse,anxiety,aparty,depression and dementia(including the AIDS Dementia complex).Others include mania and some other psychotic manifestations as well as some psychomotor symptoms.

It is therefore very surprising when I heard recently that APIN(AIDS PREVENTION INITIATION IN NIGERIA)located in JUTH is planning to hold a training on counselling HIV positive patients and that they are sending invitation to different departments to send people to attend the programme.As a matter of fact, I gathered that they asked for up to 20 participants from a department like Haematology who did not reply as promptly to their request and not a single invitation to a department like Psychiatry!This is simply unacceptable.It is high time Psychiatry is fully integrated into the scheme of things concerning the prevention and management of HIV/AIDS.

As a matter of fact, I gathered that there was a researcher who came from abroad and collected data on psychiatric conditions among patients being managed at APIN.However,while a foreigner has recognised this and even did a good work on it,our own people could not recognise the importance of Psychiatry in the management of HIV positive patients and thereby extend invitation to Psychiatry to participate in the up coming programme!This is another classical example of how other doctors and nurses from other departments and the general public undermine the importance and relevance of Psychiatry.However,the relevance of Psychiatry is increasing daily and cannot further be ignored!

The American Psychiatric Association have a good manual called PRACTICE GUIDELINE in the treatment of patients with hiv-aids and it can be assessed on the following link;
http://www.psych.org/psych_pract/treatg/pg/HIV_AIDS_05-15-06.pdf